HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8

Ars has a pretty active bunch of HP Microserver users, so I thought I'd share. There is a new model out - a Gen8 - with Intel internals & a new chassis. I haven't found a great product page on it yet, but they're on the web now...

The G2020 is a pretty good CPU. I ran one for a while in both a HTPC and in my server. I run a Sempron X2 190 - it's not half the CPU the G2020 was. Both the Sempron and G2020 blow the Turion of the older Microserver out of the water.

Besides, it's a simple upgrade in the Gen8 (assuming they haven't done some funky CPU whitelisting).

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M310 is a more compelling option for a small office than the Microserver; up to 8 2.5" drives, 32GB of RAM, quad-core option, plus a redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M310 is a more compelling option for a small office than the Microserver; up to 8 2.5" drives, 32GB of RAM, quad-core option, plus a redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M350p is a more compelling option for a small office than the M310; up to 24 2.5" drives, 768GB of RAM, dual octo-core option, plus a double-plus redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M310 is a more compelling option for a small office than the Microserver; up to 8 2.5" drives, 32GB of RAM, quad-core option, plus a redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M350p is a more compelling option for a small office than the M310; up to 24 2.5" drives, 768GB of RAM, dual octo-core option, plus a double-plus redundant PSU option.

(See what I did there?)

Hah, you're both wrong, this beast is more compelling option than either of those.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M310 is a more compelling option for a small office than the Microserver; up to 8 2.5" drives, 32GB of RAM, quad-core option, plus a redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M350p is a more compelling option for a small office than the M310; up to 24 2.5" drives, 768GB of RAM, dual octo-core option, plus a double-plus redundant PSU option.

(See what I did there?)

Hah, you're both wrong, this beast is more compelling option than either of those.

If anyone wants to help me justify that for home use, I'm open to suggestions. :-p

That looks like Dell's entry into the "unified" storage/compute/networking concept.

If there's an option for the chassis to get a 10Ge connection (preferrably dual) that would be excellent! That and SSDs to swap for the spinning drives as an option.

Hmmmmm, and shared-nothing vmotion/live motion would make that very interesting.

Either way, to justify it for him, explain to the spouse that it's an investment for career development. Use it to get VCP5 or CCNA and on to a salary increase/new job.

Study SDN and/or practice working on making your own OpenCompute cluster, complete with working Puppet instance.

From my reading of job openings, puppet/chef/cfengine are in higher demand these days, with classic sysadmin work being automated away. That means it's time to pull yourself up to the next level or wind up left behind the times.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M310 is a more compelling option for a small office than the Microserver; up to 8 2.5" drives, 32GB of RAM, quad-core option, plus a redundant PSU option.

This thread is in The Server Room; with this in mind, the M350p is a more compelling option for a small office than the M310; up to 24 2.5" drives, 768GB of RAM, dual octo-core option, plus a double-plus redundant PSU option.

(See what I did there?)

Hah, you're both wrong, this beast is more compelling option than either of those.

Dell has had unified storage/compute/networking for awhile now with the Converged Blade Datacenter in the M1000e chassis. That being said, VRTX is a more comprehensive approach to that for Remote Office/Branch Office with integrated systems management as well.

10GbE - there isn't an integrated option today, but VRTX has something unique: server-assignable PCIe slots that allow you to put in your favorite 10GbE NIC or two or eight. But think about why you need 10GbE. Usually for converged networking, but shared storage is already taken care of, freeing you up to use the network adapters for network traffic alone.

If you want to do shared nothing vmotion/live migration using a VSA, or storage spaces (future) you sure can, but you can also use the shared storage in VRTX, which means you don't need a VSA.

It's not 1/2 an M1000e, and it's not like a Bladecenter S or C3000. It's not even a blade chassis, per se. It just happens to use M series blades for the compute portion, and leverages IP from the CMC for management, but the similarities end there. The things that are different:Integrated shared storage.Server-assignable PCIe slots. NIC, GPU, PCIe SSD, FC HBA, or even a Brooktrout card.Office-level acoustics - deploy it anywhere, including next to your desk or in a closet.110V power - regularly available in offices without having to run special circuits. Of course, the Power Supplies auto-sense, so if you have 208, you're good to go.

I have the N40L. I paid $259 for it. This new Microserver would be a good buy if it were cheaper, or they included some HD space or more RAM for $530 they are asking.

I can easily build a 4-core i5 with an Intel mobo in a mATX case for $500, and would have more RAM and a HD for that price too. That system would run circles around the Microserver. Servers are appealing for redundant PSU and hot swap HDs and real hardware RAID. But when those features aren't present, then why pay the premium price???!

HP had a hit on their hands with the original Microserver... but only because the price was so low. No one in their right mind would run a Neo CPU in a server unless the price were so low to make the system essentially throwaway asset.

Now HP saw how many Microservers they sold and got greedy and priced a faster but still underperforming system almost double (same as their entry level Proliants!) but with no redundancy or hotswap. WTF?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the VRTX only has 3 full size PCIe card slots, with 5 smaller ones that will limit your NIC capabilities. The one design flaw I saw was that they have capacity for 4 blades but only 3 full size cards, even with the PCIe switching capabilities this is a limiting factor and a design flaw I simply can't wrap my head around. Changing blades to cards requires a reboot as well. Other than that, its a compelling platform that has several use cases. 10GbE should have been pre-integrated though.

I don't mean to hijack this thread as it is (obstensibly) about another topic, but since the questions are asked I will answer them.

VRTX has 3 full-height, full-length PCIe slots, and 5 Half-height, half-length slots. Your perspective is that having 4 blades and only 3 FH slots is a design flaw, but it's really a design decision. We would have loved to have had more, but there's a problem of where do you put things when you've got physical constraints? Weigh the options of having fewer overall slots, or limiting something else and you can start to understand the reasoning on this decision. There are many, many options for PCIe devices in HH/HL form factors, which mitigates this decision quite a bit.

I understand the comment about requiring a reboot after adding a PCIe device and mapping it to a blade being a nuisance, but I certainly wouldn't consider that a flaw at all. It's actually better than other blade-based architectures because I have the ability to unmap and remap a device in a PCIe slot and simply reboot. Traditional blade (or rack) architectures require powering down and remove 2 servers, opening them up, removing and reinstalling mezzanine (or PCIe) cards, closing them up, reinserting, and then powering back up.

With respect to 10GbE integrated from the beginning, I wish we had it at launch too. However, with the integrated storage not requiring networking, the use cases are few and far between for the intended model for VRTX - designed for Remote Office, Branch Office, workgroup and departmental systems deployed and managed simply and cost effectively. As I said earlier, if 10GbE is required today, you are able to do it via the PCIe slots and add-in 10GbE NIC or CNA and use an existing investment in 10GbE TOR switching for connecting them.

For hobbyist/home users what do you guys use your Microserver for? I am looking to upgrade my perfectly functioning Intel Atom-based Acer Aspire Revo nettop that acts as a torrent and video streamer.

I run Ubuntu 13.04 on it with ZFS. On this I run a Server 2012 VM using KVM and everything works beautifully. It supports almost any protocol (iscsi, CIFS, NFS etc) and is rock solid.

How well does Ubuntu works with ZFS? Is it chaos and death on each kernel upgrade (they are awfully often) requiring manual installation like virtualbox kernel modules or is it automatically upgraded or the update held back until a compatible ZFS module is available?

Next question, anyone using 3rd party 16GB of RAM? If so, what brand and part #? On newegg the cheapest 16GB of RAM goes for $108 by a brand called Apotop and tops at $180. Crucial CT4487631 memory guaranteed to work on the Gen8 goes for $190.

Has anyone also stick in 4TB HDDs into the Gen8? It was certified to run at 3TB only.

Just got one of these. Trying to boot Solaris as per http://compnect.com/?p=1939 though I installed vbox & Oracle Solaris 11.1 appliance. (Pretty much the same as this offical looking doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15gT ... 70rwwielr9 ) The usb boots on a mac laptops but the Proliant doesn't recognise it. It is pretty frustrating as there shouldn't be a problem booting it. Any ideas before I give up and turn to freebsd?

Never mind, it was the old 'only boot from particular usb port'. :sigh: why do they do that?